This is a true story involving living people.
Our policy is to exercise caution with personal information while keeping the veil thin enough for descriptions of events to be verifiable.
Full names will only be used in special circumstances.
Update 8/29/2022- A fake newspaper called US~Observer publishes the hostage video of a former member.
Update 7/02/2022- The first feature about The Body is live. The Other Side Of The World is a good place to start.
Update 4/23/2022- Arrests have been made and children have been rescued in Tonasket, Washington.
The Body is an active Christian fellowship that holds its services in the homes of members belonging to the congregation. The group started as an isolated collective made up of a few families on the Kenai Peninsula of Alaska, but has since become an international faith organization. Despite the Body being active and moving around the globe in recent years, they’ve remained an underground phenomenon for most of their history…
An ambiguously named faith group without a homepage, address, or phone number might not seem like something to be overly concerned about, but the story of The Body is extreme enough to warrant consideration beyond the small imprint the group has made in the secular world.
Information concerning the organization is thin in a Google search, but leaked recordings and a deep reservoir of data collected by journalists over the years prove there’s a lot more to this story than what’s been published online thus far. Sources have indicated that leadership desires The Body exist below the radar for religious reasons, but it also may be the case that the low profile this group has maintained for nearly 20 years is more about keeping secrets than purity to God.
Update 02/01/2022- Recordings from inside The Body have been released.
Update 02/03/2022- Digital traces of The Body revealed.
Who’s in Charge?
This Body is led by a man we’re referring to as Marc B. It’s important to know that Marc claims to be a sort of living deity with a direct line of communication to God and that this connection has created serious problems for believers on a number of occasions since Marc took command of the group in 2003.
It isn’t all that unusual for religious leader of Marc’s background to claim personal divinity, when you observe the benefits that have come the preacher’s way as a result of his perceived holiness, it’s not too surprising that his reign has continued for as long as it has. Marc can claim what he wants, but what’s concerning is how leadership twists this fantastic connection to God to justify extremely unsettling practices that have led to the abuse of members.
We’ve heard multiple examples of God telling Marc to force his followers to participate in their own molestations in a process known as “washing.” Since some in the congregation are minors and we’ve heard of kids getting washed, these acts are even more concerning than originally believed. There will be more on the sexual elements of The Body discussed in articles released with trigger warnings.
Marc’s status as a new son of God has brought him wealth too. A land sale in his name that investors claim they were cut out of was worth millions. As far as we can tell, that swindle might be the closest thing the man has had to an actual job in decades. Also of note, when blackmailing those opposed to abuses in the church became part of the The Body’s playbook, Marc also claimed he was acting on behalf of the Lord’s intentions.
These pieces of the story- which come from survivors and court records collected over time- illustrate that the unlikely line of communication between Marc and the heavens has become more and more toxic with time. If you’d like some evidence of Marc’s Christ complex, here’s a clip of the man explaining a revelation received from “Daddy.”
The “daddy” stuff is pretty weird, and if you consider the message the God is sending in the clip, it’s not difficult to imagine how this super power of Marc’s became something of a license to abuse. Unfortunately, that short clip is about as tame as it gets when it comes to directives received from God in our collection.
If you’re looking for something a little more unsettling to be convinced Marc’s holy connection is destructive, there’s more audio on the way. Here’s a clip that highlights a more dangerous prophecy. The man is a threat to the safety of his followers.
Seperation
The Body has displayed all kinds of destructive tendencies, but instances of family separation caused by leadership are perhaps the most horrifying part of the story we’ve uncovered. It’s not great when grown adults screw up their lives on account of the influence of someone like Marc B, but the situation gets a whole lot darker when kids are involved. Unfortunately, scenarios involving mothers abandoning children is where a lot of our documentation comes from. Many former members have maintained silence, but when something like custody is put in jeopardy, we’ve found that people have been more willing to talk about the church.
One of the most tragic figures in this story is Melissa P. She had six children while in The Body, and she left them all behind in a cloud of scandal to follow the ministry. Instead of watching her kids grow up, Melissa is now on the other side of the world in The Body’s Australian chapter where she’s married to an elder in the church old enough to be her father. When Melissa turned her back on her family, it was because God apparently told her preacher abandoning children was the right thing to do. At that time, Melissa’s youngest daughter was only two years old.
What makes this sad story even worse is that it’s connected to sex abuse. If you’re wondering why The Body deserves exposure beyond what this website is capable of, know that- according to multiple credible sources- the motivations leadership had for removing Melissa from the lives of her kids had more to do with lust than morality, and we’ve heard that Gary P, Melissa’s own stepfather and Marc’s right hand man, instigated the abuse that resulted.
Here’s an artist’s rendering of Melissa that came all the way from Nairobi, Kenya.
To read a feature about Melissa and the history of The Body, click here.
Untitled by Jahera- Nairobi, Kenya
If what happened to Melissa inspires concern, whatever’s going on with Carrie C might be even worse. There’s a pattern when multiple cases of neglect of this nature turns up in such a small sample. Unlike Melissa, we know that Carrie has departed the church. Why she’s never returned for her young children is a mystery we’ve yet to solve.
Of the two children she abandoned and left in the care of The Body upon her exit, one was turned over to the care of the church shortly after birth. In the video you’ll find in the above hyperlink about Carrie, a former member claims she never had the opportunity to hold her baby. She went through nine months of pregnancy and then turned over her parental rights to a group she would’ve been aware had had a history of unreported sex abuse. Carrie then failed to show up in court when custody was awarded to another member and has been living an obscure life in Pennsylvania ever since.
What Kind of Church Would Play A Role in Separating Mothers from Their Babies?
The Body is a destructive cult.
Sometimes it’s difficult to make such a firm distinction with an unorthodox church that exists far from the eyes of the mainstream, but there’s been enough reporting conducted about the group by now that we don’t feel there’s anything ambiguous about what the church is.
Elsewhere on this website you’ll find criteria used by experts to classify what is and isn’t a cult, and this should be useful for a third-party determination. These characteristics combined with the of evidence available on the next page should be enough to win over skeptics.
Portrait of The Body Member Peter Q by Loserhands. Melbourne, Australia
Where Is The Body?
Traces of The Body can be found on the Kenai Peninsula of Alaska in the towns of Nikiski, Kenai and Soldotna.
There has also been activity in Koloa, on the Hawaiian island of Kauai.
The areas with the most active populations these days, however, are found in Tonasket, Washington and Tumut, Australia.
To enter our google earth portal and see where members are cloistered click here.
Marc B is an authoritarian cult leader and we believe he’s extremely dangerous.
The Body are actively recruiting new members.
If you found us while searching for information about The church after coming into contact with believers, please consider what we’re publishing.
There is so much more to this story…
We’re releasing articles about The Body with evidence uncovered through years of reporting on the next page.
This story will be updated regularly as we process our data and search for new updates.
The Beginning…
Here’s a rapidly paced video featuring a few experts along with the voices of current and former members of The Body. It was the first thing we published about the cult. This can be a strange little entry point into the story for newcomers. For coverage of a more serious nature, continue to the blog.
